the Toraja are an
ethnic group indigenous
to a mountainous region of
South Sulawesi,
Indonesia.
Their population is approximately 650,000, of which 450,000 still live in the
regency of
Tana Toraja
("Land of Toraja"). Most of the population is
Christian,
and others are
Muslim
or have local
animist
beliefs known as
aluk ("the way"). The Indonesian government
has recognized this animist belief as
Aluk To Dolo ("Way of the
Ancestors").
The word
toraja comes from the
Bugis language's
to riaja, meaning "people of the uplands". The
Dutch
colonial government named the people
Toraja in 1909. Torajans
are renowned for their elaborate funeral rites, burial sites carved into rocky
cliffs, massive peaked-roof traditional houses known as
tongkonan,
and colorful
wood carvings. Toraja funeral rites are
important social events, usually attended by hundreds of people and lasting for
several days.
Before the 20th century, Torajans lived in
autonomous
villages, where they practised animism and were relatively untouched by the
outside world. In the early 1900s,
Dutch
missionaries first worked to convert Torajan highlanders to Christianity. When
the Tana Toraja regency was further opened to the outside world in the 1970s,
it became an icon of
tourism in Indonesia: it was exploited by
tourism developers and studied by
anthropologists.
By the 1990s, when tourism peaked, Toraja society had changed significantly,
from an agrarian model — in which
social life and customs were outgrowths of
the Aluk To Dolo—to a largely Christian society.
wait for the next post, I will post about attractions Toraja